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Physical infrastructure and global capacity are both needed to fight biodiversity loss

Nature Plants volume 9, page 1940 (2023)Cite this article

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A recent editorial in this journal1 highlighted how equity and access are essential to using the unique power of herbarium collections for understanding plant biology and mitigating environmental change. Many large collections, such as those held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), are global in scope and of particular value because of the comparative work enabled through their taxonomic, geographical and temporal comprehensiveness. However, such collections were partly developed under colonial regimes and are located far from the centres of biodiversity that they represent. An effective and just response to the extinction crisis that the planet faces must be as global as the collections themselves.

As the editorial notes, this can be achieved through the support of local herbaria and botanical science in all countries where biodiversity research is carried out; acknowledgement of botany’s colonial past; and digitization. But the necessary investment in broadening the base of botanic data and expertise would be undermined — and not supported — by disinvestment in biodiversity science in developed countries. The work of RBG Kew in over 100 countries is always conducted in partnership with local scientists. The development of an integrated global catalogue of reference biodiversity data, mediated via international bodies such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, will aid biodiversity research worldwide, provided that it is supported by capacity-building activities in biodiverse nations. At the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity2, it was agreed that a multilateral mechanism for the sharing of benefits resulting from the use of digital sequence information should be developed, and that local capacity to utilize it needs to be strengthened.

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References

  1. Nat. Plants 9, 1573–1574 (2023).

  2. CBD. Decision adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. cbd.int, https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-15/cop-15-dec-09-en.docx (2022).

  3. Burbano, H. A. & Gutaker, R. M. Science 382, 59–63 (2023).

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  1. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK

    Paul J. Kersey & Alexandre Antonelli

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  1. Paul J. Kersey
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  2. Alexandre Antonelli
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Correspondence to Paul J. Kersey.

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Competing interests

P.K. and A.A. are employed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

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Kersey, P.J., Antonelli, A. Physical infrastructure and global capacity are both needed to fight biodiversity loss. Nat. Plants 9, 1940 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01594-8

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